Interwar period

The curious case of an apparent amnesiac in Collegno paved the way for forensic science to become one of the pillars of Italian law.

Colonial schools in Africa eroded national identity and pride; in Sierra Leone a new way of teaching had to be found.

In the aftermath of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler was in prison and the Nazi Party banned. But its failure taught him valuable lessons.

The Republic of Turkey is 100 years old. Built on the ashes of an old empire, what place is there for the Ottoman past in the secular state?

Mystery surrounds George McMahon who, having tried to assassinate Edward VIII, outed himself as an agent of a ‘foreign power’. Does the discovery of new Italian documents solve the puzzle or obscure it further?

After winning the biggest shooting prize in the Empire, Marjorie Foster joined the new pantheon of women making sporting headlines. On the eve of the Second World War, she had a new target in her sights: the War Office.

In the interwar period, France and Germany worked towards an integrated Europe.  

Turkey has a long history of coups, but the failed İzmir plot to assassinate Atatürk in 1926 had a lasting impact. One foreign journalist recorded the reprisals that followed with admiration – which soon turned to fear.

Victor Silvester brought ballroom dancing to the masses and his enormous influence persists to this day in the TV show Strictly Come Dancing. Much less well known is his extraordinary career as a boy soldier in the Great War. Richard Hughes sets the record straight.